Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines
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Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines
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Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines
#2> Please assume other participants are posting in good faith, even if you disagree with what they say. When people present code or text as their own work, please accept it as their work. Please do not criticize people for wrongs that you only speculate they may have done; stick to what they actually say and actually do.
That's a breath of fresh air. There's always someone who tries to read between the lines and strawman people for what they did not say/express. Keeping the benefit of the doubt is always a more charitable (and peaceful) way for conversations to take place.
Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines
#3Side note: This is the first E-Mail I've seen from Stallman in over 4
years that hasn't started with his usual boilerplate:
[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]
Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines
#4I think this is a good approach, since these guidelines seem to arise out of compassion and wanting to make both the disrespectful contributors and the people they disrespect better communicators, and make the community better as a whole. In contrast I get the sense that most CoCs I read are motivated by a desire to punish people who make you feel bad.
Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines
#5A code of conduct states rules, with punishments for anyone that violates them. It is the heavy-handed way of teaching people to behave differently, and since it only comes into action when people do something against the rules, it doesn't try to teach people to do better than what the rules require. To be sure, the appointed maintainer(s) of a GNU package can, if necessary, tell a contributor to go away; but we do not want to need to have recourse to that.
That is the paragraph that captures the essence of the CoC issues for me. A CoC seems to be used as a weapon for killing those that do not abide by its rules, not as a tool for teaching each other to be awesome to each other.
Edit: I also love how each paragraph in the guidelines starts with "please". It's such a different approach than the one taken in CoC: "please do this or that for everyone's benefit" rather than "do this and that or you'll be judged by the appropriate judging organ".
We lack this kind of gentleness in the world of raging wars between pro-CoC people and anti-CoC people.
Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines
#61) I hate this trend
2) I like that he acknowledges the criticisms against the trend and attempts to get to the root of the issue rather than "agreeing" with one of the polarised sides. (Anti-CoC/Pro-CoC people).
It's nice to have guidelines, they're less aggressive than whips. Hopefully this is enough to appease both sides.
EDIT: please criticise my points. If you have something to say, don't hide behind the downvote button.
Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines
#7This is a remarkably sane and cogent approach.
His point about CoCs failing to encourage behavior “above and beyond” the rules is well made, and i hadn’t thought about that side of Goodheart’s Law in this setting before.
Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines
#8> Rather than trying to have the last word, look for the times when there is no need to reply, perhaps because you already made the relevant point clear enough. If you know something about the game of Go, this analogy might clarify that: when the opponent's move is not strong enough to require a direct response, it is advantageous to give it none and instead move elsewhere.
I love this analogy of why not responding might be your best option.
Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines
#9A code of conduct states rules, with punishments for anyone that violates them. It is the heavy-handed way of teaching people to behave differently, and since it only comes into action when people do something against the rules, it doesn't try to teach people to do better than what the rules require. To be sure, the appointed maintainer(s) of a GNU package can, if necessary, tell a contributor to go away; but we do n…
“The behavior of any bureaucratic organization can best be understood by assuming that it is controlled by a secret cabal of its enemies.”
― Robert Conquest
Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines
#10A code of conduct states rules, with punishments for anyone that violates them. It is the heavy-handed way of teaching people to behave differently, and since it only comes into action when people do something against the rules, it doesn't try to teach people to do better than what the rules require. To be sure, the appointed maintainer(s) of a GNU package can, if necessary, tell a contributor to go away; but we do n…
“The behavior of any bureaucratic organization can best be understood by assuming that it is controlled by a secret cabal of its enemies.” ― Robert Conquest
The relevance of the quote you've posted might be less obvious than you think it is.